


want the flame without the burning

by Marianne_Dashwood



Series: tell me what it's like to burn [2]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Aftermath of Possession, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Disordered Eating, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Family Dynamics, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Minor suicidal ideation, Nausea, Recovery, mentioned not depicted if you are wondering, not eating as a form of self-harm, or alternatively, self-neglect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:35:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29227077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marianne_Dashwood/pseuds/Marianne_Dashwood
Summary: even a god can't fix everything.
Series: tell me what it's like to burn [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2146032
Comments: 8
Kudos: 58





	want the flame without the burning

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [interlude: lida](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29126502) by [chrysalizzm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrysalizzm/pseuds/chrysalizzm). 



> yes here i am again, trash galore. whoops. PLEASE PLEASE go read the young god series before you read this or it won't make any fucking sense. it's also just a fantastic series so, you should go read it already anyway?????
> 
> first of all, HUGE shoutout to Chrysalizzm for setting up their young god discord, i've been in there less than a week and it's a bunch of wonderful, creative people, so this fic is for all of you guys, with all my love! :D
> 
> second of all, PLEASE HEED THE TRIGGER WARNINGS  
> this fic contains depictions of not eating/extremely disordered eating as forms of self-neglect and self-harm. This is not intended as a depiction of eating disorders/a specific eating disorder. it was based on personal experience and obviously I can't speak to everyone's individual experience, so please, please, please, if that is something you know triggers you, or you know you are sensitive too, click out of this fic. Having said that, recovery is heavily implied and you know that his character is surrounded by people who love and support him.
> 
> If you do enjoy the fic, please kudos or comment!!! Or come chat to me @MJDashwood on twitter or marianne-dash-wood on tumblr!

He’s a ghost haunting the White House, and yes, he is fully aware of how stupid it sounds. He’s breathing, even if sometimes his breath weezes like a loose balloon, wind in a paper bag. His heart beats, and sometimes he wishes it didn’t, because it feels like an accusation with every thrum, every steady beat that is so unlike the one floors below him. It always folds then, his hands shaking as he tries to force himself into gratitude.

Why is he so fucked when his friend could very well be dying below him? Why is he so fucked when his friend might be dying _because_ of him?

Why did he save him when it feels like it didn’t actually save him at all? If he is saved, then why does he feel hollow, scraped clean and open and hardly a person at all?

He could live with it, at first. Mostly because whatever had happened to him had left him and his successor exhausted and wrung out, and he didn’t have any brain left with which to think, so he curled up with any of the brothers he could gather in his arms and slept for 14 hours straight. 

When he wakes up, he is alone. In the corridors, people rush past him without seeing him, ice and water in hand, healing potions that won’t do a goddamn thing. They are far too busy with things that are actually important to notice how he shrinks into the wall, how his jumper swallows him whole. His brothers say they will talk, but, subconsciously or not, they are avoiding him. When people speak to him, they avoid his eyes. Niki’s tone is clipped, for all the relieved smiles she sends his way. She’s too busy actually helping, so he keeps out of her way

The gnawing ache inside him grows, and he makes his way into the kitchen for something, anything to do. He ends up making soup, potatoes and carrots and rabbit, just like his dad used to make, and maybe it’s a peace offering, maybe it’s just soup, but he makes enough for the entire White House. He pads, socks and soft yellow wool and glasses slightly askew, and he dishes out dinner without a single word. 

He tries to eat it, he really does. But whatever had control of his body (ha, that’s a lie, he knows, he knows, _he knows_ it was all him) didn’t take good care of it. There is exhaustion from weeks of sleepless nights etched into his bones, cradling his eyes, and he’s a lot thinner than he remembers being on the day of the election. His stomach feels like it has shrunk to the size of a walnut. He only gets two bites in before the soft potato makes him gag, and all he can see is the way that Techno stood in front of their younger brothers when he entered the room and he barely makes it to the toilet in time. 

He tries again. This time, he studiously avoids the chunks of vegetable, sipping the broth out of a chipped mug with daisies on it. It’s hot, so hot, burns his throat and his lungs and it feels just like the rage and the hate, it’s back, the fire and the destruction are back and this time they will burn him until there is nothing left and no one can save him -

He pours the rest of his portion down the sink. He doesn’t talk to his brothers. He doesn’t sleep that night. Instead, he ends up playing cards well into the early hours with a man that was once his most hated enemy. 

He knew he didn’t remember, knew the days between the election and hearing that awful, agonised scream were obscured in smoke, choked by ash, illuminated only by hurt and betrayal and _rage_ . He doesn’t remember, he can’t fucking remember, and he doesn’t know if it would hurt worse if he did. As it is, his chest tightens and his breath goes funny whenever he thinks of that all-encompassing rage, the hatred that kept his heart beating and his body moving and nearly wiped everything that was _Wilbur_ away. 

_It wasn’t you_ , his younger brother says, and Wil wants to scream, because even if he doesn’t remember the things he did doesn’t mean he didn’t do them, because the first people we lie to are ourselves and Wil is done lying. 

_It wasn’t you_ , and Wil doesn’t answer. Wilbur has always loved with his whole heart, every atom, every nerve, every particle of his being. He loved with everything he had, offered his heart broken and bleeding to his father, his brothers, his revolution, his country, his friends. Is it any wonder that when he hates, he hates with his whole heart?

 _It wasn’t you_ , his brother says, and Wil cannot bring himself to tell his brother how wrong he is. The fire ate him up, heart and conscience and love and all and no one was burned more than his little brother.

He’s reminded of bedtime stories, of a war fought because of one person’s poor decision, a war that spans a decade and thousands dead, a war that inspires myths told centuries later. _The face that launched a thousand ships,_ he remembers. His voice called out for revolution and they followed him. His voice called out for war and they followed him. His voice called out for chaos and fiery devastation and he nearly led them into self-immolation. When did he start seeing his family as tools, weapons, blades? How did he not realise what was happening to him, the moment he sent his little brother to die?

Breathe. In for seven, out for eleven, just the way his dad taught him. Back when he was whole, or at the very least, a little less fucked up. He still can’t eat much; he avoids mealtimes and Techno’s knowing eye, ends up in the bathroom right after his best enemy if he does force something down. He tries to remember that he is alive even though his skin doesn’t fit quite right most days and sometimes he feels like everything has been scooped out of him and all that is left is a shell. A ruined, burnt out house, the smell of ash lingering in his wake, open and turreted to the sky. The fire was extinguished, they said that you could live in what was once a home again. Some days, he feels like he can; he straightens the pictures, he sweeps the ash away. Other days, his home is just a skeleton, and bones cannot repair a house. A small campfire burns in the open living room. Embers spark in the ruins of Wilbur’s heart. 

He makes dinner. He doesn’t touch his guitar. He lets his brother bully him into eating a mouthful of food, and ends up in the bathroom anyway. He gets sick of the taste of milk, the only thing he can stomach. He holds Schlatt’s hand at 5am. He wishes he remembered. He goes through the motions, and can’t help but feel like the walls of Troy are about to fall at any moment. 

Everything he eats tastes like dust, like ash, like sand and he wishes his dad was here with a pang that leaves him retching. If it doesn’t, then it burns his throat, swallowing coal, swallowing flames and that brings up too many memories so he avoids any hot meals like the plague, only choking down dry and plain food under Niki or Techno’s watchful eye. Sometimes he wonders why they keep wasting food on a ghost. Sometimes he feels like he doesn’t deserve it, doesn’t deserve this kindness from the people he hurt and those feelings make him sick to his stomach, and those are the days he spends hunched over in the bathroom, too nauseous to move. Other days, the feeling of his stomach trying to devour itself, an ouroboros telling him that yes, yes, he is alive. 

The days pass, and the walls don’t fall. He sits on the roof of the White House and watches the sun rise and stupidly, his heart feels lighter. It’s something. He manages to eat a whole apple. It tastes like ash but it’s something. Notes sometimes fall out of his mouth, slipshod melody and stuttering harmony, and his fingers twitch for the strings of his guitar. It’s something. His brother doesn’t flinch away at the sound of his voice any more. It’s something, but it’s not enough.

Their god wakes up, and 

_are you there are you there wilbur wilbur wilbur there there floating rising glimmer in the dark yes yes yes brighter glowing no firestorm no blaze no hate no death_

and panic winds itself around his heart and he holds his friend to his chest because gods, please, please don’t let him get hurt now trying to save what is already broken, _please_.

It’s 2am, three days after he wakes up, and Wilbur cannot wait any longer. When he arrives, the room is empty, and Dream is waiting.

“What did I do?” because he is the only person he trusts to tell him exactly what happened without trying to spare his feelings. 

Dream speaks for a long time. His voice wavers in and out, the crackle of an old radio, ragged and tired but he keeps going. By the time he is done, Wilbur feels sick. Not an unfamiliar sensation, but he cannot help the retching, and the despair across his face. The other reaches for him, but Wilbur pulls back, sharp. 

“Don’t. My madness almost killed you.”

“It didn’t,”

“Why?” He asks, voice barely a whisper.

“Because I’m a minor god?” Wil can almost imagine a raised eyebrow under the mask and he huffs out something that might be a laugh, under any other circumstances. 

“No, I mean… Why me?

A head tilt; subtle confusion. 

“I’m not… I didn’t grow up with you, I didn’t spend years at your side like George or Sapnap, we went on one shitty date and you killed my little brother and you gave us our independence and I nearly killed everyone I’ve ever cared about but you stopped me, you _saved_ me, and I don’t understand _why-_ ”

A hand on his, and he is too late to pull away but there is a quiet breath next to his ear, “ _Listen_ ,” and 

_because the wind whispers i love you, because the sky writes it in the stars, because you are human and you love so deeply and so wholly and i can only dream of doing the same, because your family loves you and you are important, because even if you had no one you are important, because you built a country with your bare hands for your friends like i built a world, because you love with your whole heart and that means it hurts more, because each blade of grass and each tree was made for you, for all of you, for love, because you are my friends, my family, and a world was the least i could give you, i love you i love you i love you_

Wilbur blinks and his eyes are wet, and he is still hollow, he isn’t settled, not in the way that he recognises, and he still doesn’t quite understand. 

“I would do it again in a heartbeat,” Gentle hands wiping away his tears, “And again, and again, as many times as I have to. I could help, so I did.”

“It almost killed you,” He says again, because it is the only protest he can stomach right now. 

“It didn’t, Wilbur. It didn’t.”

They don’t say anything else. What else is there to say? He isn’t _settled_ , he doesn’t hear that strange whisper that's almost his friend and almost something else, but he feels like atlas freed, he feels like odysseus coming home, he feels like _himself._

He wakes to sunlight streaming through the curtains, the smell of freshly baked bread; it’s the first time Niki has baked properly since the festival. He dreads going to breakfast, especially because it’s the first time since waking that Dream will be strong enough to walk downstairs. He resigns himself to sitting in the corner, drinking water and avoiding anyone’s attempt.to fill his plate. He might eat something today, he thinks, he might, and it’ll be a good day. 

“Here, I’m stuffed, can you finish this for me?”

A smile under a mask, and a god’s leftovers are shoved into his hands; soft cheese from the Badland’s cows, slices of apple cut thinly enough to swallow without tasting, and finally, Niki’s signature loaf, torn open and now cool to the touch. 

The two of them exchange a look, knowing they’re both too alike for their own good, and Wilbur sighs and begins to construct something that his younger brother terms “an absolute monstrosity of a sandwich,” but half of the fun is in the teasing. 

He doesn’t end up finishing the sandwich; recovery doesn’t happen overnight, and even without a firestorm, there are broken pieces in his brain that even a god can’t fix. 

Not even finally tasting something that isn’t ash could fix it. Maybe nothing can. But he can taste the crisp of the apple, the cheese melting in his mouth and the bread is filling and doesn’t burn him as he swallows it, and he thinks, maybe with his friends, he can survive it. 

He can _live_.


End file.
